If a CIA employee infects a foreign finance minister's device with malware so US can obtain unfair advantages, he's an unsung hero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...
(To be fair, most countries have vague laws and corrupt courts so having a court in country X decide that someone should be executed is hardly any better, in practice, than having Barack Obama order the execution.)
Bullshit. Millions of people have directly lost their lives due to the actions of the American government and citizens. Where were the criminal proceedings and due process for "collateral" damage in dozens of countries worldwide?
Said employee enjoys immunity from prosecution in the United States.
The US prosecutes foreign hackers operating on behalf of other countries all the time. They're rarely apprehended for obvious reasons, but the US is playing a very dangerous game with the liberty of their own hackers.
All said, most of it is political posturing and I don't expect people to be eradicated or disappeared but that is a very real possibility in some countries.
When it becomes "fun" is when you're at Defcon and you see people that also recognize you, but both of you know you're on opposite sides.
So the US isn't playing any game that other countries aren't. Unless you work in the US govt. in one of these agencies doing this type of work, respectfully, you are looking at it from a tainted lens.
There shouldn't be any supranational entity. In a democracy, governments should be accountable for their doing.
Just a recomendation for your reading list since I was thinking a similar pithy comment and figure you might also enjoy that book like I did.
If the CIA does something against another country it’s still illegal.. just not inside the US.
The NSA and CIA are probably more interested in feeding Wall Street insider information on foreign economic activity so they can obtain advantages than anything else, and of course there's the kickback angle with the private contractors bloated secret budgets. How patriotic can you get?
Your second paragraph seems a tad hyperbolic. The intel machine is there to progress a country’s interests. Most of the time, it is for peaceful purposes, but agreed there is often a commercial interest at play.
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good: the world isn’t black and white, but shades of gray.
I think it’s both the case that the US does unsavory things and that the US is better than those nations on the subjects you’re talking about.
> The NSA and CIA are probably more interested in feeding Wall Street insider information on foreign economic activity so they can obtain advantages than anything else, and of course there's the kickback angle with the private contractors bloated secret budgets.
Compared to those nations you listed, I don’t think this claim is true.
Citation needed. What a ridiculous thing to say.
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/longhorn-cybe...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-bra...
Those claims seem to be false. Engaging in cyber-espionage (and indeed, going to war) for economic advantage seems to be the name of the game. Why not just be honest about it, instead of spouting all this pablum about 'defending democracy and human rights'?
Maybe the actual decisionmakers of the world all already know how the world works.
Are you kidding me?
Wall Street has pretty much shied away since Clarence Beeks blew the orange juice corner in 1983.
Of course it was. Read Chomsky.
out of respect for the forum here, let's elucidate a bit. The History of Civilization on the one hand .. you know, the difference between a pack of animals and something that can endure via shared purpose.. The History of Conscious Choice (won't say the R**** word here) .. are both grounded in choosing higher ground so to speak.
At every stage, those who could cheat the rules for others, look good doing it, and take the rewards, had an economic/territory advantage. Those who serve in a uniform service are bound by law for real reasons !!
How can a single comment blithely dismiss the "Social Contract" and hand-supply a lame excuse as contribution to a social discussion ? Its the same mentality as 12 year olds stealing .. "everyone does it" is not the answer, not at all.
You should see what goes on and who dies in order to keep our iPhone and gas prices down, and our children fed.
Expose consumers to the true costs of goods and services in a moral world, and the world’s morals are going to start looking pretty different, pretty quickly.
Bullshit. None of that is for our sake. These people aren't running charities or ideologically driven; they're just greedy scumlords who would happily sell guns to 8 year olds, or systematically deny climate change for 50 years, if it made them money.
As in the USA, certain acts that individuals do in China and Russia are prohibited in their respective regimes and yet practiced by their foreign intelligence agencies. We agree fully.
That is not the point you were originally making. You seemed, facetiously, to be confused that behavior prohibited to US citizens was permitted to the US intelligence apparatus.
State-state interactions are bound by different rules & norms than person-person or person-state interactions.
Trying to take moral reasoning as it applies to individuals and apply it to states just doesn't work.